The Lost Temple

Posted on Sun Jan 2nd, 2022 @ 10:26am by Ka'see 'Cassie' Anderson (*) & Evahnae Kohl & Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein & Jinx Jorasco & Liha t'Ehhelih

Mission: Mission 14: Holoworld
Location: Holoship/Exandria/Tal'dorei/Rootgarden Marsh
Timeline: MD 2/Evening
8364 words - 16.7 OF Standard Post Measure

“The gnolls went into the marsh,” Bree Periwinkle, the character played by Jinx,- told the others. The short hafling stood with her hands resting on the pommels of her twin scimitars, her small raptor companion circling around her. This far north, the nip of autumn was in the air, and trekking through a swamp was going to be chill going. “Everything Thorbran’s old teacher said seems to line up.”

The group had come to the eastern town of Drynna on the Mooren Lake at the request of Lysanther Quendy, an old elf and former teacher of the dwarven cleric. Jinx looked at the crudely drawn map they had been given, drawn from the memory of sixty years ago. “Somewhere in there is this old temple he found. He doesn’t know why the gnolls would be interested in it. Maybe just as a base. Who knows? They hit that last trade caravan pretty hard, but they didn’t take any survivors, just the goods. Oh, and supposedly there is a black dragon living somewhere in the swamp. Fun times!”

“Well, we do like to mix things up. Dragon sounds fun. We would love to meet a dragon,” Cassie commented, trying to get back into Greebella’s mindset. It had been a while since they had an opportunity to fully dress up to enjoy the characters and campaign, let alone have an opportunity to have it as expansive as they had with the up-to-date holodeck.

"Not sure about 'fun', but dragons have loot that might be worth taking," Thorbran, the character played by Burnie, replied. He placed a hand on the hilt of this battleaxe. "The main thing is to clear out those gnolls."

Liha cracked her knuckles. "Gnoll killing with some dragon slaying for dessert. Not a bad program," she remarked, looking around at the holographic representation of one of their D&D games. "Should be a lot more satisfying to do this hands on instead of imagining the scene."

The sad twang of combatant strings, followed by a muttered curse of incomprehensible origins, gave rise to the easy supposition that at least one of the party hadn't really heard the instructions. Having recovered from the fascinated appeal of the elongated horns adorning her forehead, and the oddly-purple hue of her skin, Eva had become quickly immersed in the challenge of actually being able to move. The flute dangled easily from her belt, and the viola had its own case that, judging by its weight, could double as a bludgeon in a tight pinch, but the criss-cross of dulcimer and lute straps that saw the latter cling to her back whilst the other threatened to smash her in the nose the minute she tried to walk uphill, was problematic. To make this work gracefully, she needed to be at least another two-feet taller and built like a Klingon pit fighter.

She nudged the satchel containing the rest of her belongings with the toe of her boot.

"Someone want to hang this from one of my horns?"

"Allow me." Cassie moved and hung the item with just a small smirk at the ridiculousness of it all. But it would be a welcome change.

“I think I found the trail,” Bree said, kneeling down a bit to the left. They were hours behind the gnoll raiders, but it hadn’t rained, and this was fairly uninhabited country near the Rootgarden Marsh. “Five of them, but who knows how many more are in there. So keep your eyes peeled.” She straightened. “Out of character, everyone remember how the holodeck does your spellcasting?” Jinx prompted. “Once we’re in there, I don’t think we’ll be able to call up the tutorial.” They had run through it a couple times. The holodeck would read specific hand motions in addition to specific ‘magic words’ and produce spell effects from appropriate characters.

“I practised,” Cassie confirmed, as it was the first time they were getting to use the holodeck in the capacity that they were. She was just excited to be able to dress up in something other than her usual ship uniform. Her relatively simple blue dress flowed down to the floor, but had two long slits up either side that if she had moved correctly revealed boots. It was the headband and staff that she carried that created the biggest fuss. They made her have to walk taller than she normally did.

"Me too." Burnie held up a hand. He'd played a dwarf for years, and had fun with the 'short but tough' vibe, but it was strange being his real height, but also somehow 'wearing' a short body in here. The costume was spot on though, axes, hammer, mail, shield, helmet, and a big bushy beard; he looked a proper dwarf for sure.

Liha simply nodded, looking 'down' at Burnie with a barely concealed amused smile. She'd come to enjoy this Human game -- not that she was ever going to outright admit that to anyone -- especially as it was both amusing and interesting to see the others playing their characters' roles. Seeing them in holographic costume added a whole new level of amusement, especially as she was not altered so much herself. There were times she wondered if there was a kernel of truth to the old rumor theory Earth's mythical elves had been inspired by vulcanoids who had visited Earth sometime in Human prehistory. Other than much lower tech body armor than she'd normally wear, even her clothing was not so far from her usual look.

"Theoretically." As the newest member, Eva had admittedly adopted more of an improvisational approach to trying to catch up with the rest of the group's experience. Nevertheless, whilst she knew the program would adjust, it had become a personal challenge to master the riffs and runs required of each instrument to 'cast' her magic. Whether or not she could ever actually untangle herself long enough to play was another matter entirely.

"Let us follow the trail then," Cassie said, motioning where Bree had suggested, for they would get nowhere any time soon if they stopped for too long.

They walked with Bree leading, but the holodeck compressed time. It was only about five minutes, but weighted gravity made the illusion of an hour moving through trees, searching for a solid path in the wet marsh. The Rootmarsh was a cold marsh being this far north, the wet a bit chilly if they stepped off the solid ground and it got into a boot, but nothing dangerous. And there were still plenty of bugs. The water was brackish, too, as the freshwater of the Mooren Lake mixed with the saltwater of the Lucidian Ocean.

The sun approached noon as Bree raised a fist to stop the party and motioned for them to crouch behind the gnarled swamp trees. “There,” she said, pointing. About fifty feet ahead could be seen a large structure of stone. It seemed to list slightly to the left in the soft earth, and the formerly grand stone was covered in lichen, vines, and muck, making it blend in a bit with the rest of the swamp. But there was no missing the gnoll sentries posted among the trees, or the gnoll encampment that spilled from the temple entrance out onto the porch of the building, giving them cover from the elements.

Cassie winced at the smell that came from the holodeck. It felt so much more real than anything. For a moment she thought she was in Bree Landing and not in the holodeck on some 'abandoned' ship that really should have been investigated more. "Looks like the leaning tower of Pisa," she murmured, cocking her head to counteract the lean that was on the stone structure. "Looks like they are all there," she murmured, pointing to where it was impossible to not notice the gnoll.

"Ugh. Yes." Liha wrinkled her nose, wondering how the gnolls with their canid-like noses could stand their own smell. "At least they shouldn't be able to catch our scent through the stench of their own."

“So what’s the plan?” Bree asked. “I count two sentries and six inside that we can see.”

The gnolls inside yipped and barked, their language not always words. They were cooking something on a fire, and occasionally squabbling over it. They wore hide armor with shields, spears, and longbows nearby.

"Take out the sentries with arrows and whip up the fire to roast the rest?" Burnie suggested cheerfully.

Bree nodded. She looked at Liha. “Should we get those sentries, then?” she suggested, pulling her shortbow from her back. “We’ll be the quietest.” She looked at Thorbran in his noisy scale mail.

Liha nodded and smiled as she pulled out her crossbow and notched an arrow. This was going to be so much more satisfying than rolling dice and imagining shooting things.

“So who gets the fire, me or you?” Cassie asked Burnie with a look having not missed his suggestion or cheerfulness. It was a welcome change to see.

Lifting a hand as though ready to cast, Burnie gave Cassie exaggerated Big Puppy Dog Eyes. "Please?"

Cassie rolled her eyes and took a step back, indicating he could go and burn things till his heart was content.

Bree indicated the drow woman should take the one on the right and then the halfling and her raptor crept off to the left. She found a spot behind a tree that gave her a good shot at the gnoll sentry, and her arrow flew straight and true. She fired a couple more, just to be sure. The gnoll gave a quiet yip and slumped to the marsh floor.

A split second after the first gnoll dropped, the second fell, gargling blood from the arrow through its throat. Liha edged around another tree, took aim, and planted an anchor shot in the fallen gnoll's head, silencing it completely. She looked toward Bree and gave a brief nod before disappearing back into the shadows.

“All clear,” Bree reported as she slipped back from the sentry. “We could probably sneak up on the camp now.”

"Alright," Burnie whispered, crouching down to slip toward the camp. "Burn, baby, burn."

"If only I had a camera to show Nollel." Cassie teased him just slightly.

Bree followed the noisy dwarf, moving off to flank in the shadows a bit. She drew her pair of scimitars and readied herself for action as the team moved in closer, to within twenty feet of the gnolls camped just inside the old, ruined building. She sensed more than felt Zambi tense with readiness beside her as she waited for the chaos that Thorban would bring.

Settling into a position where his armor wouldn't rattle (much), Burnie waved his hand, whispering an incantation.

**Fwoom!** The firepit exploded into a searing fireball, scattering scorched and burning gnolls, howling in alarm.

It did not take long for the chaos to start from the first flicker of fire until the gnolls were running around and into each other. "Well..." Cassie commented, wincing at the scene. It reminded her of the fire field of Pharos Prime that from her research of the current period was still burning from the civil war in 2244.

"Nice," Liha remarked with an approving smirk. "Good thing he can't do that outside a holodeck though."

"You know," came the conversational observation from the group's bard, having mostly resigned herself to pack mule status, "I'm pretty sure I can help make bigger fireballs." Overly-innocent eyes, red-tinted against her purple features, blinked several times in nonchalant guile at their dwarven pyrotechnic. "I mean, if that's helpful."

“Don’t get too cocky!” Bree said. Many of the gnolls were down, but others were putting the fire out of their fur and grabbing their weapons. Bree gave a whistle and darted in, followed by Zambi. She zipped past one of the gnolls, her scimitar scoring across the creature’s chest, before she was engaged two on one with a pair of the monsters, her blades working in master strokes to fend them off. Zambi darted in, nipping at legs to try and bring them down.

Cassie was surprised at how quick the gnolls were as one grabbed her before she could sweep her staff under them and bat them away. It had been many years since she had just done any fighting with a weapon and she was going to add it to her list of things to do with Liha. She was normally the weapon instead of relying on something connected to herself. "Been a very long time since I've fought with a weapon," Cassie commented as she knocked out the gnoll’s legs from under him.

"Bit awkward, yeah?" Burnie commented, swinging his axe at oncoming gnolls. It was one thing to play an axe-swilling dwarf around a table, but quite another to actually swing the axe in person. Axes were not, after all, among the weapons Starfleet typically trained even security guys to use, and before this Burnie’s sole experience wielding an axe had been using a pickaxe on rock. So far the weight spinning him wildly had somewhat kept the gnolls at bay -- even they weren't keen on rushing an unstable dwarf-powered circular saw -- but he was starting to find its balance.

"Down!"

Burnie dropped the axe and hit the ground just as the spear flew past where his head had been at nearly the same instant a knife flew in the opposite direction, lodging in a gnoll's throat.

"Yes!" Liha exalted, then spun, short sword in one hand, knife in the other, slicing one gnoll's throat and continuing in a smooth turn to disembowel another. A third charged her, sword raised and rushed to meet it, flipped the knife to lay along her wrist as she raised it to block his blade while her sword entered his belly. She kicked him off with a wild grin, looking for her target; this was so much better than imagining the fight! "Bring It!"

“Very awkward,” Cassie called as she scooped up a gnoll with her staff and flung it. It might have been awkward, but she could not help but think of the muscles it was helping to create.

"Speaking of awkward..."

As the howls and grunts around them swelled to a cacophony that was insulting to the ears, Eva had reached the end of her patience. It was all well and good to laden a character with instruments on paper, but the practicality of trying to be a one-tiefling orchestra left ample room for reconsidering the wisdom of anything other than a flute. Theoretically, each instrument came with its own set of riffs, which in turn provided a unique set of buffs, but switching required more hands than she possessed.

With a frustrated yelp, she took the viol case in two hands and threw it, hard, directly into the face of an already-struggling gnoll. Ignoring where the instrument ended up, and hardly mustering the will to care whether it was damaged or not, the horned bard struggled to free herself from the strap that fitted the dulcimer snuggly to her chest and contemplated throwing that before thinking better of it. Setting it to the side, Eva pulled the lute from her back and took several hopping steps to mount a small rock.

She made eye contact with Burnie. "Bigger fireballs, right?"

Music had a life of its own even without magical intervention, but there was no mistaking the swirl of arcane potency, a reddish magenta in colour, that coiled from the lute strings and wove its way, like a serpent, towards the dwarf.

A manic grin lit Burnie's face as he lifted his hands and began to chant.

"Hnaev," Liha cursed, seeing what was about to happen. "Everyone get back!" she yelled, diving for solid flame-proof cover.

*FWOOM!!* A massive gout of flame burst from Thorbran's out-stretched hands, consuming everything in its path and setting ablaze everything in a broad wake to either side.

Jinx was in her element. She hadn’t had this much physical combat since leaving her homeworld. While the Kisongo had energy weapons when needed, there was a strong tradition of physical warriors. She moved through the gnolls, slicing, blocking, parrying. Blood sprayed as she slashed their flesh; only vaguely did she wonder at the fact that maybe it was a bit more ‘real’ than what the settings should be.

At the warning, Jinx whistled to Zambi. “Clear!” she yelled to the raptor, then backflipped away from a pair of gnolls she’d been attacking. She felt the searing heat of the flame on her backside as she got clear of the area.

Cassie dived to the floor hearing the curse from Liha. The sensation was so real that he rolled onto her back and saw the fire just above her face.

The swamp was suddenly quiet except for the sizzle and pop of gnoll flesh. Jinx wrinkled her nose. “They smell even worse cooked!”

The way into the ruined building was now clear, the gnolls all dead.

Jumping down from her rock and moving to collect her slightly-singled viol case, Cadence, Bard of Hellfire, lifted her hand to high-five her diminutive accomplice.

"Yeah!" Burnie jumped up, slapping her hand, then smiled apologetically at how cold her hand felt, which probably meant his hand was still quite hot.

"Well..." Cassie was stumped for words as she stood up and looked at Burnie. "Feel better?" she wondered, using her staff to pull herself to her feet.

Burnie grinned, thickening what he imagined to be a dwarven accent as he replied, "Nothing like a nice giant fireball. Makes your whole day better."

"So long as you aren't caught on the receiving end," Liha snarked, rolling her eyes. It was a good thing holoprograms had safeties for the real people.

Jinx was going through what bodies she could, picking out coins and valuables. “Looks like they were pretty flush,” she said. “I’ve got twenty gold here.” She picked up one of the gnoll’s axes, turning it over in her hands. “Say, these are better weapons than gnolls usually have, aren’t they?” she asked. “Most of them look brand new, don’t they?”

Cassie just looked at Burnie fondly and shook her head. He had sounded just like her mum for a moment. It was like she had been a child listening to her mother's thick accent stark against her father’s Vulcan one. "You sounded Scottish," she commented on his accent before Jinx's question raised her interest. "Indeed, they are brand new. Now, why would gnolls need brand new weapons, and who provided them with those items?" It was not like gnolls could just go to a marketplace.

"Dwarves are Scottish... who knew?" Burnie muttered, then turned to examine the gnolls' valuables. The only problem with using a big fireball was that gold was a soft metal, so what was in front of him was more shiny puddle than coins. He pulled out a knife and pried it up from the rocky ground anyway. Picking up the blob of melted gold, he weighed it in his hand. "Yeah, either they recently had a very successful raid, or they're in service to someone with serious resources."

“So what options does that give us?” she wondered, wishing she had researched a little more now.

“Well, we can check out what they have inside?” Jinx suggested. “Maybe some clues there.” She peered through the opening where doors would have been. The gnolls had been camped out in the larger outer room, and an archway led into a smaller inner room. There appeared to be carvings on the walls, and the faint traces of gold and silver to indicate what had once been decorated or painted

“Kind of looks like a temple,” Jinx mused. The inner room looked like a place the gnolls were storing their gear. There were sacks and crates along the walls. At the back was a large statue of a female with wings stretching over her head. Her arms were held out in front of her holding a bowl.

"A temple for what?" Having found a likely nook to stash her surplus instruments in, Eva reveled in her newfound freedom by squaring up to the doorway, hands on her hips and lute strapped once again to her back. She stopped short of entering, but that seemed more the result of distraction than any consideration for traps or unseen threats. "I mean, temples are a place of worship, right? Meditation?" She nudged at a singed body part with her foot. "Less so a place of protection though, if I had to guess."

Thorbran rolled his eyes. "You have obviously never visited a dwarf temple."

"Or a drow temple," Liha agreed. She looked at the faded signs of old gilding. "Though this one is in serious disrepair."

“Well, I mean, it’s pretty clear it’s a lost temple,” Jinx said, studying the iconography on the walls and the large statue.

The tiefling frowned at that. "Well, it's not lost now." Directing her furrowed brow through the doorway at the statue, Eva screwed up her nose. "What's her deal then? Goddess of Soup?"

"Bowl held out, hmm," Thorbran studied the figure. "She's either offering something or asking for donations. Is there a goddess of beggars?"

“The Everlight, a goddess of the dawn and redemption, once a lost and forgotten goddess, and now making a comeback in the world. Similar to Betazoid deities,” Cassie said with a shrug as got closer to the statue.

“Didn’t they just put up a temple to the Everlight in Westruun about ten years back?” Jinx looked around the room. “They seem to have kept the path to the statue clear,” she noted. “Do gnolls worship the Everlight?” she asked skeptically.

“Never seen them worship anything,” Cassie commented with a shrug. Who was she to judge? Cassie had no faith at all. It was not logical to her father and her mother had never admitted to any religious preferences.

“Well, let’s see!” Jinx headed down the clear space in the center of the room and to the statue to examine it more closely. “Hm...Looks like there might be a seam here,” she said from where the statue was against the wall. “And the muck looks disturbed.” She eyed the floor at the base of the statue.

"Hold up there," Thorbran said, coming over to examine the statue. "That's probably a secret passage or store room, but that also means it's probably booby-trapped."

"Or at a minimum something unpleasant is waiting inside," Liha added, joining him. She examined the seam, and cocked her head, listening. "I think I hear something..." She paused and looked at Burnie. "So how does this work if we can't roll for perception or whatever?"

Cassie looked unsure herself. She barely knew how to use a holodeck for all her brains, some 2300's technology was beyond her due to not being something on SS Mary Rose. "Whatever it is is quiet or far away," Cassie agreed, narrowing her eyes as she tried to focus. "Yeah... we should have asked that before. How does it work?"

Jinx was sitting on the arms of the statue now and looking into the outstretched bowl. “You said the goddess was the Everlight, right?” she asked. She ran a finger along the inside of the bowl. “I think if we put some light in here, it might open.” She held up a finger blackened with soot.

"Does it necessarily have to be a bad something?" Eva asked with unconvincing optimism. “Our gnoll friends seemed to hang out here without much concern."

“Might like them, but not us,” Cassie offered as she gripped her staff tighter until her knuckles went white.

“Thorbran! A little help?” Jinx held out a torch she had pulled from her backpack toward the fire cleric.

As Thorbran stepped forward, Liha took a step back. "Try not to turn it into a giant fireball," she muttered.

"I can do controlled." He rolled his eyes, and with quick incantation lit the torch, then flashed a grin. "It just isn't as much fun."

With the torch lit, Jinx dropped it into the bowl. It flickered there for a moment. The stone of the bowl started to glow brightly, brighter than just the torch should have, filling the dim interior of the temple with bright, pure light. The ravens decorating the bowl seemed to flutter away like shadows in the light.

“Oh!” Jinx exclaimed, falling back on the arms as the statue started to move, stone sliding on stone as it slid aside to reveal a wide doorway and a set of stairs leading down. Small magical lights on the wall lit the way.

"Staircases that run underneath magical statues can't possibly lead anywhere bad, right?" Eva's confidence wavered slightly as she took several steps towards the open doorway and then leaned forward, several metres away, to try and see the bottom.

"It goes underground; that's positive from my perspective," the dwarf replied, hefting his axe in one hand.

"Shh, I'm listening," Liha said, holding up a hand. She looked at Cassie. "Do you hear that?"

Cassie nodded, straining to hear what exactly it was, but she knew there was something. "Yes. But I do know what it is." It was difficult to focus on.

The sound of water dripping could be heard.

Taking several steps backwards, Eva squinted in thoughtful consideration for a moment and then broke into a reasonably controlled jog, heading back along the path to retrieve the discarded instruments, which suddenly didn't seem so much a burden as a shield.

“Well, we won’t find out staying up here!” Jinx said, jumping down from the statue, swinging from the arms before landing on her feet. She gave a whistle to Zambi. “Smell anything, girl?” she asked.

Zambi snorted, then hissed slightly.

"Obviously she does not like it," Cassie commented. The creature had good taste to not like whatever they were going to face. "This is definitely one of those times I wish I could roll."

"Same," Liha agreed, holding a knife at the ready.

For his part, Burnie was ready to fight, if necessary, but strode down as he imagined a dwarf would feel more comfortable heading underground.

Having readjusted her load to the best configuration she could find, Eva picked her way carefully down the staircase, turned slightly to the side to avoid the disruption of banging things into the wall. Her hand gripped the viol case tightly, feeling far more protected by its sturdiness than the thin rapier banging against her boot or the dagger hidden somewhere amongst the layers.

The soft magical lights lit the stairs as they made their way down. The stairs turned and then opened up into a larger room about twenty feet on either side. The walls shimmered in the lights with water condensation. It looked like shelves had lined one wall, but those had long since rotted away, leaving a mess of debris that looked like broken glass. One area had the shelves carved into the stone, though, and there were a couple vials of some substance sitting on them. Around the room were stone workbenches or the detritus of tables rotted away over the centuries from time and damp. Across the room, a hole had been knocked in the brickwork of the far wall, revealing darkness.

In the absence of immediate threat, Eva dumped her instruments against a wall and reached up to untangle a spider's web from one of her horns. "Cozy."

Liha scanned around. "If any of the gnolls got down here, all they did was toss the place." She crossed to the vials, looking but not touching, and then toward Burnie. "Tell me these aren't what made the hole in the wall."

Thorbran had been examining the hole in the wall -- for professional curiosity, of course -- and shook his head. "No, this wasn't blown out. Someone battered this down."

"So who battered it in?" Cassie wondered, crouching delicately as best she could with the dress on to look at the remains of the brickwork. She could not peer through the darkness in the slightest.

Thorbran could tell that the hole in the wall had been battered from the room outward. It tumbled into what looked to be a large, open cavern that ended in a pool of water. The cavern seemed a bit chilly. The dwarf scratched away a bit of brownish mold and found evidence of tool marks, though they were old, not recently done by the gnolls.

Liha looked at the vials on the walls. She thought she recognized some of the chemicals, acids and compounds used when embalming deceased persons. She figured this room was a preparation room before the bodies were buried.

As the party searched the room, two pools of blackish, standing water began to move along the floor toward them. They rose up a bit from the floor, stretching out black pseudopod tendrils and surging at them as the black puddings attacked!

"Uh, guys..."

Having left the task of investigating to the others, Eva's grumbling over the chore of managing her belongings had resulted in what was fast become a ritual 'undressing', opting once again to only wear the lute. Readjusting her weapons involved switching the rapier to her other hip and, thus, she was left brandishing it in frozen tableaux as the tentacles groped their way from potential hallucination to actual concern. "Guys!"

Grabbing the embalming fluid vials, Liha flung them at the black puddings. Burnie stepped back, readying another fire spell. "Want to give me another boost?" he asked Eva.

"Boost. Boost, right!"

For an awkward moment, Eva stared at the weapon in her hand and then simply let it drop to the ground with a clatter, needing both hands to pull around the lute and hold it in place. The first strum missed a beat, adrenaline complicating the coordination of her fingers, and so the bard took a leap of faith, trusted her party to provide cover, and screwed her eyes shut. Against her eyelids, patterns of notes marched in quick succession, far easier to focus on without the visual noise. Once more, tendrils of purplish-red snaked their way towards the expectant dwarf, branching slowly in several directions to encircle the remaining party members in turn.

The urge to sneeze was intense.

"Go, go!" With her eyes still closed, Eva didn't dare break concentration to sneak a peek at the impending carnage.

Go was the main thought in Liha's mind since the fluid she'd thrown at the pudding was already flammable -- add in the flame boosting spell, and this place could well become a blast oven. But she spotted a tendril darting out for a grab and drew her knives.

Cassie yelped as the black tendril wrapped around her staff. "Uh what is it?" she demanded, trying to tug her staff free.

"It's about to be fried pudding!" Liha yelled, slashing through the tendril and pushing Cassie back. "RUN!!" she added, demonstrating by bolting through the hole.

Cassie followed quickly despite her outfit and frowned at what was about to happen.

Not completely oblivious to the potential for roasting himself and the rest of the party along with the black puddings, Thorbran pushed Eva through the hole in the wall, backing through himself as he cast the spell.

**FWOOM!!**

It had occurred very briefly to Eva that, by rights, her character's heritage should have theoretically lent itself towards some sort of fire resistance but it was one thing to make sweeping assumptions and another thing entirely to trust those when faced by imminent third-degree burns. She stumbled, eyes flung open as the small dwarf's push tested her footing, and with only a parting apologetic glance at her abandoned belongings, scrambled towards the back of the hole and crouched, arms and lute protecting her head.

Burnie dove to the side of the inner wall, joining Liha, who was already farther in and plastered against the wall with a small shield over her face as a gout of flame shot through the hole.

The chemicals Liha threw at the black pudding didn’t seem to affect it. As Cassie struggled with a tendril with her staff, she smelled the scent of burning, corroding wood from her staff. The same happened to Liha’s knives. She cut through the black pudding easily, the metal of the knives smoked and pitted...and then the black pudding she had slashed...was cut in two, becoming two smaller antagonists!

The group retreated toward the hole in the wall. Thorbran threw another fireball, enveloping the one large and two smaller puddings in flame. It seemed to do some serious damage to the puddings.

Liha frowned at the corrosion marks on her knife. "Acid based," she spat. "Anyone got soda or lime or potash... " Her hand scraped the floor, gathering ashes from fire-blasted remnants of wood. Quickly rolling a scrap of map into a slim cone, she dumped the ash into it, leaned around Burnie, and blew a sharp puff into the tight end, sending a small cloud of alkaline wood ash at the acidic monsters.

“My staff.” Cassie sighed as she lost it in two pieces. She flung it back out the way she had dived in, in disgust. She swept her hair out of her face glancing back at what Burnie was doing.

"Why does it look like every attempt at gravy I've ever made?" Eva mused, moving forward whilst still crouched to get a closer look. She pulled up next to Thorbran, now roughly face-to-face with him. "Fire's about the only thing doing anything, right?"

“Gravy on chips would be nice about now,” Cassie commented as she had a moment where she could remember the meal her mother used to make after school on a day where she had been busy in the lab. It had not been healthy, but it cheered up a teenager who was not accepted by Vulcans or Humans in 2230s.

Burnie grimaced. "Not that gravy, it's all acid. Fire works, but Liha is right, hitting it with alkalis is probably the best bet."

“You never saw my mum's cooking,” Cassie answered, actually making a joke as she could not get closer to look. “Any alkalis any one can see?” she wondered, looking around trying to see in the darkness.

"What exactly are we looking for?" In keeping with her rather haphazard introduction to the lore of the simulation, Eva hadn't really grasped the fact that, unlike the others, she could see reasonably well in the gloom. Everything was muted, tending more towards grayscale, but she had more or less just assumed that was a feature of the location and not a peculiarity of her character's racial inheritance. "Been a long time since I had to pay attention in science class." Trying to crane to see, the tiefling added, "Did the wood ash do anything?"

"It flinched a little," Burnie said, scooping more from the area near the hole. "It's not concentrated enough to do real damage. Do you see any bat guano? That stuff's pretty alkaline, especially the fresher kind."

“Stay back,” Bree-Jinx warned Zambi as the raptor prepared to challenge the black puddings. The small woman slipped the shortbow from her back. “Keep it occupied.” She fired a few arrows into one of the puddings. It seemed to damage it, but the arrows corroded away inside the body of the ooze. “Magic is going to be our best bet,” she told the casters in the group. Bree’s own magic was more support, though, relying on her weapons for damage. “I guess it’s up to me to keep them off you.” She put her bow away and picked up an old femur bone. It was already pitted and scarred, but would be better than her swords as she charged at the pair of puddings.

"Magic... oh that is me..." Cassie said, realising she did not have her staff to be able to channel things as she had practised.

"Bone," Thorbran exclaimed, seeing Bree's attack. "Good one, calcium is alkaline. Grab a bone if you can't hit it with magic."

"Better than ruining good knives," Liha grumbled, looking about for more bones. "But don't run at it; those things will grab you." So saying, she demonstrated by picking up a bone shard, notching the end to a point, and hurling it at a black pudding like a long dart or a short spear." It seemed to cause damage, but clearly not enough. "I can't believe I'm going to say this," she said with a glare at Burnie. "Cast more fire."

"All right!" Thorbran rubbed his hands together and began chanting. **Fwoosh** Another gout of fire shot at the black puddings.

“Show off,” Cassie commented with a roll of her eyes. “What can I do?” She would have to remember this to do it, but she was sure as a sorcerer she was able to help. Did she have enough power? Did she have enough slots? Did it even matter without her staff? There were so many questions that she had and she looked at Jinx questionably trying to work out what to do.

“Remember the words and gestures,” Jinx told Cassandra. “You don’t need the staff for a lot of your magic.”

Thorban’s fire scorched the area again, causing Jinx to jump back a bit, but it seemed to finish off the oozes, which sizzled into putrid puddles of acid, unmoving.

“Or there’s that…” Jinx said, soot staining her face.

"Almost as if fire solves all of life's little problems," Eva quipped, grinning across at the dwarf from her crouched position.

Burnie nodded enthusiastically, flashing a big grin. "If fire doesn't fix, the next option is explosives."

Liha facepalmed. "Don't encourage him..."

“Too late,” Cassie commented.

Jinx laughed, then turned from the opening in the wall to look toward the cavern beyond. She eyed the strange brown fuzz that seemed to cover a lot of the rocks, and then she noticed that the cavern was actually chilly enough to see her breath.

“Brrr…” she said. “So why do you think they wanted in here?”

Cassie winced at the sudden cold that easily got through her thin costume. “What is with all the brown fuzz?” she wondered.

“Some kind of…moss or mold,” Jinx said. She moved closer to examine it. The cold increased in intensity, and…did the mold…grow toward her? She shivered with a sudden chill and stepped back.

"Frak!" Burnie cussed, dancing back after getting a look at the stuff. "Brown mold/ Ot sucks heat. I got nothing here. Fire will only boost it. We have to use cold to kill it."

Cold? Oh she might have something in her arsenal for a cold situation. “Frost sorcery?” Cassie asked hopefully that she had the levels to do it.

"Yes. Go for it," Liha urged, stepping back with Burnie. She wasn't a geek like him to know everything in the manuals but knew enough from his reaction to figure this stuff was bad.

That was when Jinx spotted movement from the water. A large, greenish-blue hand, fingers tipped with long claws, came out of the water, grabbed the rocky ledge, and pulled the large, muscular body of a troll out of the water. The troll looked surprised as it dropped a sack to the ground and snarled at them.

“You ain’t supposed ta be here! Looks like it’s an early lunch!”

Jinx drew her scimitars as the troll charged.

Cassie nodded as she remembered how to work the holodeck functions and stepped in front of everyone as a burst of white light came from her hands followed by the cavern becoming colder and colder by the second as the white light got stronger.

The troll slowed as the blast of cold hit it, frosting over, its skin showing evidence of severe frostbite. The brown moss in the path of the cold receded, withering away.

Bree leaped at the troll, slashing deep with her swords, and Zambi bit at the monster’s calf. But Jinx could already see the frostbitten skin and the cuts of her swords healing over as the troll swung its sharp claws at Jinx-Bree.

“Um…it’s healing!” Jinx said with shock.

Cassie stopped the ice power as it left her with nothing left. “Well, that was useless.”

Burnie eyed the moss. It might not be completely dead, but with no acid to throw, the only way to deal with a troll was fire. Taking a crossbow bolt, he cupped the arrow head, engulfing it in a small intense flame. "Liha, here, aim for an eye."

Grabbing the bolt from the cool(er) end, Liha carefully fit it to her crossbow, keeping the glowing hot head outside the wooden frame. Taking careful aim, she let the bolt fly!

Whilst the others had hurried to react, Eva had remained huddled against the wall, crouched and staring around the dank hole as the scramble of her thoughts searched for a way to make herself useful. Thus far, there had been something vaguely unsatisfying about her efforts, too focused on not falling over and then rendering it all pointless by surrendering half her kit to Thorbran's flames. It had been dumb, she realised now, to fixate on the musical elements of her class whilst ignoring her character's other potential. Balling her hand into a fist, Eva tapped it against her forehead in frustration, trying to visualise the entire page of spells she'd spent all of twenty minutes idly looking over.

The sudden flurry of motion from the tiefling fell into perfect coordination with the party's other plans in that she didn't end up with a flaming arrow sticking out of the back of her head. Eva couldn't take credit for the timing, however, owing it more to a measure of luck and, likely, Liha's reflexes. She shouted an incantation that she was reasonably sure she'd probably mispronounced and pointed an expectant finger at the already-besieged troll.

A thunderous explosion from Eva-Cadence erupted in the cave. It shook some rocks in the ceiling even as it slammed into both the troll and Bree! Jinx cried out in pain as the air shattered around her with thunder and her ears ruptured and she nearly dropped her swords. Zambi whined in pain, as well, whimpering.

The crossbow bolt fired by Liha struck the troll in the face, and it howled in pain at the fire, which seemed to do more damage than it should. And that didn’t start healing, despite the fact that a broken arm caused by Eva’s shatter spell was already healing. Liha noticed an acrid smell, though, and looked down. She’d stepped in a puddle of the dead black ooze remains, and her boot sizzled. It was acidic! And there were still some empty and partially filled clay and glass vials sitting on the shelves around the old embalming room.

"Acid!" Liha exclaimed, dumping whatever was in one of more intact glass vials and scooping up black pudding remains. "Let's see if you can heal from this," she cried, lobbing the vial right between its eyes.

“I thought holodecks were safe?” Cassie asked, stumbling to her feet confused. Her ears were ringing so much that she could not understand what Liha was saying.

"Holodecks might be but perhaps I'm not." Still wide-eyed, Eva stared at her index finger with newfound respect, which was to say she stared at it and then very intentionally pointed it away from herself.

Cassie just smiled as the ringing finally subsided just in time to hear the noises from the Troll as things got out of control.

The troll screamed as the acid struck it in the face. It clawed at it, its skin sizzling, then roared into a rampage, blinded by the acid, which wasn’t healing, and determined to destroy its attackers with blind swipes of its claws.

Jinx and Zambi disengaged for a moment to recover. The troll was going down quickly now to the attacks of the others, and out of the corner of her eye, Jinx spotted something swirling in the air.

“Um…guys…” She looked at a rapidly coalescing portal forming in the cavern.

As the troll fell to the party, the portal opened to allow a small troupe of goblins led by a pair of hobgoblins to enter the cavern. Most of the goblins were loaded with crates. In their surprise, one of the crates was dropped and broke open, revealing fine hobgoblin weaponry, like that the party had found used by the gnolls.

The fight was short and one-sided, and soon only dead goblins were left with the party.

“Well, I guess we know where the weapons came from,” Jinx said. She toed a goblin over to examine the tattoo on its arm. “But what is the Iron Authority doing way up here?” she wondered. “What could they want this far north?”

Zambi growled and seemed to have found some kind of sack tucked hidden away near the water. She pulled it out into the open.

"Nothing good," Thorbran replied to Jinx's question, frowning as he considered this development. His old mentor had apparently had more reason than they realized to be concerned about the activity here.

"When are they ever up to good?" Liha asked, bending over to look through the weapons and pick out some good pieces. "But at least they've supplied some nice replacements for what we've lost or gotten acid pocked."

“I cannot think of any mining authority that we’ve met that have been positive,” Cassie commented thinking on New Laurium.

Jinx pulled out another pair of scimitars to replace the ones that had been damaged, then looked in the bag Zambi had found. It was filled with sand and a white powder that seemed to glow slightly in the dim light of the cavern. There were a few odd bones in the bag, as well.

Thorbran knelt and looked at the contents. "Those are kuo-toa bones, though what the powder is..." he shook his head frowning. "All I can say for sure is it isn't blasting powder."

"Fish people?" Cassie ventured with a shrug, not 100% sure if she was remembering correctly. It had been a very long time since she had heard that reference. She was really going to have to read more before next time.

Having tucked her hands away into her pockets where they might arguably be restricted from further chaos, Eva listened to the group talk with a mounting sense of personal frustration. These moments of introspection usually hindered her at night whilst trying to sleep, when the day came back to her in snippets of delayed self-awareness and she had ample time to lay staring up at the ceiling berating herself for missed opportunities and failed understandings. Right now she was acutely aware that she was not pulling her weight and had arguably been more of a hindrance than a help. More pressing was the burgeoning understanding of how this all worked and that, by only entertaining her own curiosity, she hadn't actually prepared herself to properly occupy her place within the group.

She was their bard. Something about that demanded a little more support than she'd currently provided.

And so she concentrated, dropped the arguable act of impulsive comic relief, and stared intently at the assortment of clues they'd cobbled together. More to the point, she drew inwards to reserves of memory, not very well-serviced by an abundance of study time, but there were snippets. The dart of her eyes, tiny little rotations, betrayed the extent of her internal processing until she was left with a single word and a deep frown.

She glanced towards Cassie, the only one that seemed likely to know the answer, and asked, "What's residuum?"

Cassie moved through the people to properly look at Eva what was being asked to her. It had to be something magical and relayed to her character and role she was meant to be playing into the game. She frowned as she started to think on what it could be. She moved from looking at the woman to the powder that was unknown. “Residuum is concentrated magic. Missing a key component no issue it can be replaced by this I believe.” She paused trying to think on just that item. “It’s very valuable.”

"I should have read up on this shit better, sorry." For once, the brunette's tone lacked its normal vigor. Frowning, Eva stared at the powder and then towards the exit, as if considering something just beyond. "We're near a lake, right?"

Cassie put a hand on the woman's shoulder and quickly shook her head, seeing the emotions on her face. It was a reflection of what she was not able to visualise. "Me and you both. Live and learn," Cassie said simply. She knew she should have read up more, but it had slipped her mind with everything going on with her husband and trying to fix her marriage. "Yes. I believe it is a very old river."

"That would make sense given the kuo-toa bones," Burnie put in, realizing that connecting the dots was going to be up to him despite his character not having the proficiency levels of others. "If I recall, the river feeding the lake that's probably connected to this pool comes down from the Alabaster Sierras. Those are whitestone, so this," he picked up a pinch of the residuum, rubbing it between his fingers, "probably flows down with it. A residuum mine would explain paying a band of trollocs to keep everyone away."

“Looks like we solved things!” Jinx said with a smile. “And made a pretty good haul, to boot!” She examined her new scimitars. “Let’s go collect our fee!”